Smithtown HS West Students To Showcase Inventions At EurekaFest

SMITHTOWN, NY — A team of students from Smithtown High School West is among 13 squads across the United States that was awarded the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams® grant. The grant supports students' inventions that solve real-world issues, according to a news release from Lemelson-MIT.

The Smithtown students' invention is a device that monitors social distancing for students on the autism spectrum.

"Our invention, Personal Distance Monitor (PDM), is a device intended to help people monitor their personal space," team representative Alycia Broderick said via news release. "This was originally envisioned to aid students with Autism Spectrum Disorder, who oftentimes have trouble maintaining an appropriate personal space. However, our device also becomes beneficial in social distancing during our current global pandemic."

All teams are slated to be honored from June 15 to 17 at the 15th annual EurekaFest, a virtual celebration presented by the Lemelson-MIT Program that empowers student inventors, honors role models, and encourages creativity and problem-solving. In addition to presentations from the 13 teams, collegiate recipients who won the coveted 2021 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize will also showcase their inventions.

InvenTeams are groups of high school students, educators and mentors that receive up to $10K in grant funding to invent technological solutions to real-world problems they would like to see solved.

"Since 2006, the InvenTeam initiative has been changing the way educators teach and providing young people — especially young women and students from underrepresented backgrounds — with creative problem-solving skills to flourish in college and career for over 15 years," said Stephanie Couch, executive director of Lemelson-LMIT.

InvenTeam students use inquiry and hands-on problem-solving skills as they integrate science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to develop invention prototypes, Couch said.

The InvenTeam initiative teaches students to work in teams while collaborating with the target audience of their inventions. They partner with community organizations to accomplish that.

"Most of all, students learn to move forward through challenges and celebrate ‘Eureka!’ moments," Couch said.

After the InvenTeam experience, inventive cultures often continue to prosper at schools through further development of InvenTeam prototypes or the pursuit of new invention projects. So far, 12 InvenTeams have patents for their InvenTeam projects, although, patents are not a requirement.

Other InvenTeams from this school year feature students from Texas, Michigan, Massachusetts, Florida, New Jersey, Minnesota, California, Georgia, and Wisconsin.